Pushing the Boundaries of Journalism Studies: The NSA Affair and the Global Legitimation Challenges of Journalism

Session Submission Type: Panel

Abstract

This panel takes the recent NSA-Snowden –event and its unfolding aftermath as an empirical opportunity to analyze how key concepts underlying the work of journalists are being discussed and re-negotiated. The presentations are based on a transnational comparative research on how the public discourse (mainly as it was carried by mainstream journalism) in 8 countries (USA, UK, China, Russia, Germany, France, Norway and Finland) framed the unfolding event from June 2013 to February 2014.
Through studying the similarities and diversities of this global debate in different locations and contexts, the panel builds a multilayered picture of the discursive environment in which journalism will have to argue for its political and democratic legitimation. The panel looks at how the case initiated public negotiations about the relationships between privacy and security, journalism and the state, national interests and internet futures and everyday digital practices and commercial potentials of the web environment. In short, the panel sketches the “sphere of legitimate controversy” (Hallin 1986) about these key relationships. Thus it contributes to the special 2015 emphasis of the division (“Pushing the boundaries”) by using the Snowden case as a reflective moment in which some of the basic ingredients of our democratic imagination about journalism and communication come under collective, argumentative scrutiny.
Presentation 1 (Heikki Heikkilä and Risto Kunelius, University of Tampere) will provide an overview of the main interpretation frames across the transnational landscape and a look at how the NSA-case unfolded as a media event. Presentation 2 (Silvio Waisbord, George Washington University and Adrienne Russell, University of Denver) discusses the tensions between “old” and “new” forms of journalism articulated in the debate. Presentation 3 draws from an analysis of the debate in China and Russia, illustrating how the case was used to defend and legitimize local and state-driven internet governance initiatives. Presentation 4 (Olivier Baisnée, L’Institute d’Etudes Politiques, Toulouse) will look at the discourses around media literacy and everyday digital practices and how responsibilities about privacy are individualized and negotiated in the debate. While all these presentations are anchored in particular contexts and locations, they also articulate themes, definitions and meanings that cut across the transnational landscape of the debate. Thus, the panel not only illustrates the diversity of how issues of journalism and citizenship became domesticated but also provides insights into the key transnational and global themes of ongoing debate about communication, democracy and the role of journalism in it.

Sub Unit

• Journalism Studies

Chair

• Risto Kunelius, U of Tampere

Individual Presentations

• A Breach of Consensus: Outlining a Comparative Study on the Snowden/NSA Case - Heikki Heikkila, University of Tampere; Risto Kunelius, U of Tampere

• USA: Old and New Journalism in a Hybrid Environment - Silvio R. Waisbord, George Washington U; Adrienne Russell, U of Denver

• China and Russia: Legitimation of New Kinds of Internet Governance - Dmitry Yagodin, University of Tampere; Haiyan Wang, The Chinese U of Hong Kong

• France: Everyday Digital Practices and Global Surveillance - Oliver Baisnee, Institute d'Etudes Politiques de Toulouse

Respondent

• Rasmus Kleis Nielsen, U of Oxford